Daughter Of Egypt
by Ecardina
Summary: An insight into the minds of several characters within the novel concerning La Esmeralda and also eventually into the mind of La Esmeralda herself. Starting with Gudule- Esmeralda's long lost mother.
1. Chapter 1

This is my cage. These walls of old stone and granulated despair encase my demented solitude. Oh hail the lord! Oh curse the angels! Night and day are merged and the moon is no kinder than the sun. The stars burn frail in the sky and follow me through twilight and sunrise akin. They come with water and bread but what water drowns my soul in this well of sorrow. My tears have, like these eternal stones, made their tracks in my aging skin. I rip my matted hair and gnaw at my fickle bones. Oh curse my tomb! Oh curse my weathered womb which once held her and holds no more!

Could there have been anything more beautiful? So precious and so gorgeous. I held her willing with trembling hands. Her eyes so beautiful and oh so bold. Once blue, at first, then emerald green and her hair was like ebony. Her feet! Oh my little Agnes' feet were just so small and tiny, no other child had feet so pretty. My father once played music in the palace; he would have adored the notes from her cherub mouth. I clothed her in velvet for spring, silk for summer and before I could clothe my darling in furs, my little Agnes was stolen away. How I'd watch her play in the garden whilst I shelled peas. How I'd laugh to see her so merry; gurgling, rolling in the gutter. So I'd pick my darling angel and bathe her in petals, kiss away her pains and place her in her cradle where I'd sit, guarding, spinning wool for tiny slippers, by the fire…

Sister Gudule they call. I weep. _Paquette la Chantefleurie _they whisper. I scream.

What noise so bold? What noise so incongruous to disturb my solitude? What is this noise that so resembles a hysterical angel, dragged to the gallows of hell? Something within me burns… burns in my clawed chest. My heart now a lump of ice, or no better than a stone… it is consumed by this inscrutable noise.

To the bars I crawl dragging my future in the shadows, running the past in my favour before my eyes. I see… a crowd. Something more golden than the sun… she with her naked feet, she with her raven hair, she with her skin dark, but sweet, like dates drizzled in honey.

What is this I feel? What is this hatred… for there is nothing but hatred and regret within this mouldering wreck? She is with her satanic goat and her bare neck and shoulder for all men to kiss. It is she I hate! It is she I detest! Curse her! Curse she- born from those who took my darling my sweet child. Perhaps she was one of them, one who consumed my child out of greed and left me instead with a monster for a child! Curse she who dances with the devil and smiles at the drop of an honest coin!

"Daughter of Egypt!" I screech like a demon. Still they carry on in their merry making, she, the Gypsy girl dancing in circles with her horrid pet. "DAUGHTER OF EGYPT!"

The beastly child stops, turns, questions. Her face… oh it looks innocent but it is not so. It is full of deception and laced with sin. The crowd turn. Do they not say word for I can see them talking… but I can only listen to her breath. I wish it to stop and let me be done with it!

"DAUGHTER OF EGYPT GO BACK TO YOUR SORDID HOT LANDS AND BURN!"

Something familiar within her churns. Is it hatred? No? Is it the beginning of tears? Take a step back she does, as if harmed by my words and says so sadly, so pitifully "What have I done to you to deserve such words?" Her conduct is indeed poor.

"MY CHILD!" cry I "MY DARLING AGNES BUT YOU GYPSIES ATE MY CHILD! YOU MURDERED MY CHILD!" I rattle the bars, I scream, I bare my teeth for my tiny little Agnes…

"I have done no such thing!" cries she, temptress of the hearts of men and dancer with the devil's animal. "Nor have my people! Be gone you wretch! Leave me be!"

Oh what a beauty. Such elegance, such grace for a gypsy…

I continue to scream, to curse… the music begins again… she begins to dance… her voice sears my heart…

"Henriet…" I whisper slyly. I feel my tounge decaying from lack of use "…Cousin…. Henriet Cousin!" Slurred perhaps, dare he turn, dare he smirk? No. The city excutioner turns his ugly head… ugly because he is death. "Henriet…"

"What do you want of me maddened sister?" He tears away from the dancing scene, she who dares dance in the shadow of Notre Dame and be content with the praise of idle men…

"I wish her dead! She who dares to dance before Notre Dame! She is a Gypsy wretch- does the lord god not pity us good women of the chapel? A rope around her pretty neck can be done and by you done well."

"I have no wish for such brutality," replied he steadily. "There is no law against entertaining honest men and their keep. Now be silent, Gudule, or you may find yourself under different bars."

Another is kinder, however. I see him there, standing, consumed by hatred… hatred for her. He, the sorceror priest, he the archecon of Notre Dame. He watches her on the cobbles, dancing like a crazed spirit. I feel pity for his hatred, for I hate too. He hates her, the Gypsy girl, the Tigeress, the daughter of monsters and foul hot sun. I watch as his pale hands become fists… knuckles, white from the intensity of his bubbling emotions…

I can deal no more in harsh words with Gypsies today. I return to the shadows of my cage, away from the prying eyes, into the only corner of privacy I keep. There, I take from the shadows a little shoe. A darling little shoe. It was once my … Agnes' little shoe. I sew it for her once. The neighbours were so delighted when they saw them on your feet that they even forgave me for my immoral crimes. How you were loved my darling. Sweet joyful Anges. What prettiness and radiance could be compared to you whom I loved so dearly? Yet this Gypsy girl, who dazzles the crowds… I compare her to you and see that you could not have been any less beautiful than she is.

I shall sit in my corner and kiss your shoe. Perhaps I shall imagine there is another shoe and that you are before me wearing it. Then I'll pretend to kiss you, too, and we shall be happy. Then I can embrace you…

…beautiful Agnes I miss you.


	2. Chapter 2

To all who may read this…

I have for a while been considering continuing this fan fiction. My original plan was to give a chapter to each character, looking from their point of view at the story. I am still willing to this but whether I add in another plot in or not, well, I'm not sure yet.

However, it has been years since I did this so if I knew someone was willing to read it, I'd be more than happy to write it.

Which character do you think I should look at next?

Thanks J


	3. Chapter 3

The sumptuous velvets of night have come to embrace my weary bitterness just as the clouds shall hide those mocking stars with their eternal lights. Each parchment page had cost me bread and now ,that all is done, there is not a glimmer of a coin to ease my predicament. Riches have showered me, although of another kind, for the tempest tides have dosed me with mill water. The only comfort I shall have is to reach the glowing light which calls me onward like a siren's song. The bonfire has been made for his majesty, the King of fools. Oh there are many fools. I ought to pay him homeage.

They booed me. Simply jumped up a booed me like a fox to a chicken coop. "Gringoire!" their rotten, toothed, mouths spat "BOO!" Well, I shall not curse them for their inability to appreciate a master piece. They shall curse themselves. I'm certain it is probably a daily inconvenience with being brainless.

Despite it all, despite every step I take away from my past and toward my future, I simply can not understand it all. If, perhaps, my fault was my choice of subject, then surely I am not mistaken in thinking the fruits of the flesh would tempt them further? Naked women! Quivering thigh and pointed toe. How could one be dragged away by such luring apparitions? Those tempting locks and smouldering eyes. What could possibly have dragged men away a thrice time, never to return? Only the goddess Aphrodite could have possibly lured my audience away from my other worldly sirens. Yes, it is true, sweetened tongues and golden dolphins are not always to everyone's tastes but surely no one can refuse a bare bottomed daughter of eve? Such things set men's hearts a glow and their loins on fire. Of course, this is unless you are poet, for we may write about such things when a performance is taking place but it is strictly professional not to get involved. Waiting until such things are finished are the best time for wooing 'maiden's of lust. Yet, with such wonders on bait, why did they not remain? What whisked them away from my play?

Those pompous, draggled out excuses for scholars said it. They called it as they hung out of their windows like soiled washing. They said those words which might have been dipped in heated blood and sweetened with honey. "La Esmeralda in place!"

Then they left. They all left and before long the stage was empty too. Had I only not tried so hard to please I might have created a comedy or tragedy which would have livened the audience into ecstatic applauses! Yet I didn't and now I have an empty stomach, and an even emptier purse to show for it.

Who was 'La Esmeralda'? An Egyptian name possibly and a female name obviously. Perhaps a gypsy? Of course I have no preference only curiosity and a head full of cotton soaked in philosophy.

Ah, warmth! Those flames which the gods of Olympus would be envious of! The square a glow and all shadows and flickers. With her lady above me and her bells in slumber, all is tucked up into the night but the crowd which I see before me. Damn them, these bodies, they block my way! How am I to warm my weary bones when they block my way to the bonfire? I curse them, I curse them all, for they wish to deprive me of the fire and thus my soul. Wait. What is this? Why do these men not lay with their wives instead of seeking the mid-winter bite? Why do they stand in the shadow of la Notre Dame herself, fumbling and gripped like school boys? Yet, as I approach these tempted souls, I too hear the song, the dance. The ringing and rhythm of the tambourine, the clapping of the hands and the whisper which tickles my ear 'dance, dance, dance with me, dance, dance, dance and be free'. I want to dance, I seek to dance, for what could be more fulfilling than to dance with her?

Oh how she dances. Rising arms, arching back, the flash of eyes and the spill of coloured skirts. Magnificently she prances upon the spot, hand upon her hip and bodice snaking as she lowers herself upon the carpet. She slides with ease and then, suddenly, just as a man is brought to his knees, rises with triumph.

Yet I too can now hear the jingle of the spangled angel, who seeks but disguise in her darkened skin. The sun has kissed her head to toe and her olive skin is warm in the casting light of the fire. Olive she may be but fair too with hair as dark and wild as a raven's wing. Her ankles bare for all to see and such precious feet, such pretty feet, I never before have seen. Her dance is so passionate, so sad and so searching yet at the same time so wonderfully delightful that I wish to be born again so this might be the first thing I hear. A gypsy man, presumably her escort has lain down a Persian carpet so that she might dance away to the very stars. Such grace, why, she defines the very word and such beauty that it has truly arrested me. With she as my Eurydice and me as her Orpheus, I would gladly save her from the clutches of death a thousand times over. She is slender, which although is not a fault in a woman never tends to have the same effect but in her it needs no excuses, her beauty blinds all and binds such deficiencies and makes them glorious. Youthful she is, no older than sixteen at a common guess and although I can't get a clear view of her face, what glimpse I have of it is that of a goddess'.

And I know her name. Bon soir, La Esmeralda. I've been thinking of you my sweet lady.

"Be gone Egyptian locust!" screams the prisoner of her cell, that damned wretch, Gudule. She speaks in such a tone of irritability that I reckon she must have been cursing before. Yes, I've seen her before. A sleeping dragon she is indeed! Never before have I seen the old wench so capable of cruelty. Yes, she curses the taunting boys and the weather but never before have I thought it possibly for the weathered creature to speak so loudly, so shrilly and so viciously. What a viper!

Ah poor Esmeralda, she shrinks a moment but just as expected from a Queen, she is quick to see her error and continues in the song and dance. Gudule is forgotten and we think nothing of the Gypsy girl. I am mesmerised and clearly I am not the only one enchanted. The men are all gawking like babies in want of a feed. The golden light from the bonfire puts their features into distortion as it mixes with the shadows. We are all in the dark and La Esmeralda is the light. She might as well be Pandora, she is as magnificent as can be. Any man here would die for her. Any man except perhaps him.

Yes, him. That man I can only see in profile, cloaked in black. With the familiarity of a learned man eyeing another, I find myself especially surprised. He is balding, greying but extraordinarily is not aging in the way one might expect another to be at his age. He is in his early thirties, I can tell that much, perhaps thirty-four or thirty-five... Truly, I would need to be psychic to tell. For a man of such a face he has truly being attacked by great tragedies. Perhaps his family were all drowned in that damned mill water by a Gyptian? Maybe a Gypsy stole his lover? I can only speculate. However, I have never seen a man so engrossed with such a variety of emotions. Those dark eyes are fixed upon the dazzling dancer, shadowed with some sort of unspoken passion yet his brow is so stern, he might mean her death. Every now again I watch as he shudders, groans and lets a sigh of deep sorrow surpass his thin lips. I feel a surge of alarm, for I feel as if he is Hades and she his Persephone. I fear for her, for the pretty young girl with dainty feet.

Wait, I hear the sound of gilded hooves on dirty cobbles. A glow of white, a crown of yellow and suddenly, the spectre in front of me bursts! All of what was unspoken is released and he rises above all men, eyes fixed on the frightened child before him. I hear him scream with rage those murderous words…

* * *

Thank you for the support guys. I'll be continuing this from now on. I plan to have these perspectives in this order: Gudule, Gringoire, Frollo, Esmeralda and Quasimodo.

If I finish this well, then I'll continue on to something which isn't as strictly following the book.


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